Marked for Robin Pavis
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Jul 2035
David Korherr damages knee ligaments — 50 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 50 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market2 Jul 2035
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market2 Jul 2035
Wael Dahmani has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Annecy they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad2 Jul 2035
Words exchanged at FC Annecy
Ranjan Neelakandan and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets2 Jul 2035
$120.0K was the most the club would pay and EA Guingamp were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets2 Jul 2035
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad2 Jul 2035
A row about effort at FC Annecy
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Elijah Ly was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets2 Jul 2035
FC Annecy have made the call to Bayer Leverkusen. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets2 Jul 2035
Eintracht Frankfurt have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Jun 2035
Nurbol Tymoshchuk arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Nurbol Tymoshchuk has, at FC Annecy, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2035
Everything agreed with Rodez AF, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad11 Jun 2035
Ranjan Neelakandan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2035
FC Annecy have gone to Stade de Reims with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2035
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympique de Marseille have kept their man, and FC Annecy go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad11 Jun 2035
Elijah Ly falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout11 Jun 2035
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market11 Jun 2035
No place for Robin Pavis in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Robin Pavis has his answer from FC Annecy; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market11 Jun 2035
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match28 May 2035
FC Annecy refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 64 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market28 May 2035
Only the photograph left for Michel Henry
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Michel Henry will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Annecy the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad28 May 2035
Ranjan Neelakandan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 May 2035
A row about effort at FC Annecy
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Sousa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout28 May 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Abderrezzek Saidi, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 May 2035
Marcel Brun has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at FC Annecy will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market28 May 2035
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Jacques Siwe’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market28 May 2035
The shop window has Robin Pavis in it
FC Annecy have let the market know Robin Pavis can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
The dugout28 May 2035
Pierre Thomas asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match24 Feb 2035
FC Lorient win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Le Havre AC will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Market26 Feb 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Lorient can pretend not to have heard.
Market26 Feb 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Lorient is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad26 Feb 2035
A row about effort at FC Lorient
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julien Duranville was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match24 Feb 2035
It finished 1‑0, and it was Haythem Atbi’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to FC Lorient.
Player ratings26 Feb 2035
Julien Duranville was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.24. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad26 Feb 2035
Gabriel Grando and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout26 Feb 2035
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout26 Feb 2035
The manager makes an example of Yannick Pandor
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match2 Dec 2034
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 9 matches without defeat is a foundation FC Annecy did not have in the autumn.
Market4 Dec 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Annecy they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad4 Dec 2034
Ranjan Neelakandan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad4 Dec 2034
Elijah Ly falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom4 Dec 2034
Wages swallow 123% of the FC Annecy income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
The dugout4 Dec 2034
Robin Pavis gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market4 Dec 2034
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FC Annecy, another week without a signature from Matevž Vidovšek.
Boardroom4 Dec 2034
FC Annecy release $2.0M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Loan watch4 Dec 2034
“I watch every FC Annecy game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Quevilly-Rouen runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Oct 2034
Words exchanged at FC Annecy
Ranjan Neelakandan and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad16 Oct 2034
A row about effort at FC Annecy
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Elijah Ly was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market16 Oct 2034
Enzo Ngoma told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Enzo Ngoma has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at FC Annecy.
The dugout16 Oct 2034
The manager makes an example of Robin Pavis
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad16 Oct 2034
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and FC Annecy know it.
Market16 Oct 2034
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad16 Oct 2034
5 new faces, and FC Annecy are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Market16 Oct 2034
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ranjan Neelakandan’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout16 Oct 2034
Enzo Ngoma asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.